Transforming healthcare in Kenya

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THE CHALLENGE

Illness-related expenses push an estimated 1.5 million Kenyans into poverty each year, and two out of every five people who need care don’t seek treatment at medical facilities for lack of money to pay for it.

Nearly 50% of all healthcare expenditures in Kenya are paid out-of-pocket. Yet demand for health financing solutions such as insurance remains low, despite considerable growth in the health insurance sector over the last few years. Moreover, whilst donors are responsible for about 30% of all health payments in Kenya, they’re often unable to track how the funds they disburse are used. On the supply side, healthcare availability and quality fall short of need.

THE SOLUTION

CarePay is transforming how Kenyans pay for healthcare. Its M-TIBA platform is a cloud-based “finance for healthcare” solution that can be accessed on any GSM cellular phone (the mobile network standard in Africa). On M-TIBA, users are empowered to make informed decisions on how to access finance for their own healthcare and/or that of their relatives, friends or employees through their own “mobile wallet”. It can accommodate various sources of funding, such as savings, remittances from family members, donor funding for specific (vulnerable) populations and health insurance.

CarePay has grown into a solution provider for all type of payers (insurers, public bodies, donors, corporations and individuals) as well as for healthcare providers and patients. CarePay can administer, automate and manage any type of healthcare scheme or programme to ensure that funds earmarked for healthcare are spent by the right person, for the right care, at the right place, at the right time and at a very low transaction cost.

GOAL AND EXPECTED IMPACT

As of 2019, CarePay had enrolled well over 4.5 million Kenyans and activated more than 2 500 healthcare providers on M-TIBA. Participating facilities are quality-assessed according to internationally recognised standards. They are also able to access affordable credit depending on their M-TIBA payment history. In 2018, the M-TIBA platform was selected as a healthcare finance platform for the mass enrolment of households in three County pilots for the Government of Kenya’s Universal Health Coverage programme. To showcase its benefits in this context, CarePay is using its Resilience Award grant to roll out the platform at 200 public healthcare centres in two of the pilot counties.

CarePay

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CarePay has developed the ‘mHealth Wallet’, a mobile phone based wallet with which people can save, insure and pay for healthcare services.

Access to Health and Income Opportunities

We ease access to healthcare and viable income opportunities in underserved communities.